Research Notes:

The pre-eminence of the Herberts in Mid Wales dates from the settlement at Montgomery early in Henry VIII 's reign, of the newly-knighted Sir RICHARD HERBERT (1468 - 1539), protagonist of the Tudor settlement in Mid Wales, son of the Yorkist Sir Richard of Coldbrook (executed with his brother William, 1st earl of Pembroke after the Lancastrian victory at Edgecote, 1469), and nephew of Sir Rhys ap Thomas. Richard had attached himself to the rising fortunes of Sir Charles Somerset, later lord Herbert of Raglan and 1st earl of Worcester, who succeeded to the Pembroke estates and influence through his wife Elizabeth Herbert, grand-daughter of the 1st earl and second cousin of Sir Richard. Having occupied minor offices at court and in South Wales under Henry VII, Herbert became his patron's agent in Mid Wales, where the latter, steward of the Crown manors of Montgomery, Kerry, and Kedewain and constable of Montgomery castle (with power to name his own officials), appointed him receiver in most of the forfeited York and Mortimer lands of the area, supporting him against the rival claims of Walter Devereux, lord Ferrars.... Herbert was an adherent of Thomas Cromwell and a firm advocate of the policy embodied in the Acts of Union, on which he petitioned Cromwell in 1536; his great-grandson lord Herbert of Cherbury represents him as using wide powers in ‘the East, West, and North Wales’ (strengthened by membership of the Council of Wales) for the ruthless but ‘just and conscionable’ suppression of ‘rebels, thieves and outlaws.’ By prudent marriages into the leading families of the county he left (without increasing his own fortune) a dominant position there to his descendants, most of whom inherited his exceptional qualities of physique and courage and were notable for longevity and fertility. He d. on 23 May 1539, lamented by Rowland Lee as ‘the best of his name that I know,’ whose loss to the cause of order in Mid Wales he felt ‘as though I had lost one of my arms.’ ¹